Welcome

PensionTsunami's primary focus is on California's public employee pension crisis, but we also monitor news in other states, keep an eye on the world of corporate pensions, and follow developments in Social Security since it is taxpayers who will ultimately be responsible for making up deficits incurred by any of these retirement plans. We also try to monitor international trends. The editor of PensionTsunami.com is Jack Dean (JackDean-at-PensionTsunami-dot-com).

The utility’s large overtime tab in the electric operations division grew steadily beginning around 2012, but it became noticeable in 2015.

In June that year, the emails show that one dispatcher sent colleagues an email with the subject line, “Overtime and REST TIME in DANGER,” in which he proposed they all make suggestions on how to trim overtime costs before management did it for them.

One employee responded: “We have a contract. They have to honor it. … Don’t think stuff up for them.”

In March 2016, Electric Field Manager Ron Cox wrote to Utilities Principal Analyst Shelly Almgren to explain why the electric division had exceeded its overtime budget three months before the end of the fiscal year.

… something is out of whack in our state, where government pensions, benefits and salaries are far beyond what most working people in the private sector could ever hope for.

A keen observation. While defenders of public pay extol their high pay as a virtue that others should seek to replicate, it is neither fair nor sustainable when that high pay comes at the expense of those earning much less.